I have a GED and went to community college for like, 6 years and didn’t get my associates because the final “class” was sitting around the computer lab unpaid. Instead transferred to university and dropped out. Just absolutely hated it. Got married, my daughter was born and suddenly became SUBSTANTIALLY more motivated to “man up and make money”. I lost 75 pounds and suddenly I could think well enough to be a software engineer. Sleep apnea had been killing me at 300 lbs. Had a tech support job and my boss was a programmer. I’d volunteer to do work and he’d give me work that’d push me each time, like learning regexes, writing simple internal databases for the startup we worked at.
Before I had the tech support job I was working on train radiators and it was awful. Came home covered in oil. The radiators weighed thousands of pounds and could easily crush a man.
Couple months later got my first SWE job after making a side project website and making a little YouTube video about the challenges of making a modern web application, like async programming all that stuff. Just kept applying to places until someone liked me, I guess.
Then I gained the weight back and got lazy, got fired from some other jobs. For me at least being fat makes me a bad programmer. Solving health problems for me was key to being able to learn and grow, as the constant headaches and inflammation made it nearly impossible to concentrate.
My job is pretty good, not super stressful. COVID messed me up mentally and I got bad marks for the past six months but I’ve finally gotten the hang of being isolated and not being so panicked. Anxiety and depression make working almost impossible for me without Adderall or some other such stimulant. Trying to wean off of those as I don’t like how they change my personality into a more nervous less interesting person.
Man, I have a lot of parallels to this. Been on a scrip for that stuff for as long as I can remember, and I had a similar experience at school. Hearing your story really gives me hope for myself; so, thanks!
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of work are you doing now? Any tips for your past self?
I work as a software engineer mostly backend/middle tier APIs and stuff for a Fortune 500 company now.
I’d remind myself that things like alcohol that act strongly on dopamine can cause SERIOUS problems with adderall, like not feeling any happiness for a week and fun things like that. Adderall is a serious tool to be taken seriously. I joke that Adderall is like a chainsaw. If you’re using it at 3am, there’s a problem. I’d also tell myself that the Adderall isn’t what made me lose weight, and wasn’t the main thrust of me being able to learn. Losing 75 pounds and moving from obese to a healthy weight HUGELY boosted my brain power and concentration power. I was also constantly reacting to food. Had to sort that out.
Adderall let me sort of ignore it for a long time but the underlying condition just got worse. Was put on Nexium for horrible GERD at night at 34, was trembling and all sorts of scary side effects. A ketogenic diet with moderate exercise of walking once or twice a day makes a huge difference. Also magnesium is a like a miracle for my anxiety.
I’d tell me from before I was even in tech at all to just stop wasting my time failing at school and just get a tech job. Although I don’t know if I could have done it without my wife, honestly. I was really good at lying to myself and she put a stop to that shit, excuse my language. I should have tried.
I’d also maybe be less arrogant after getting a good job. I lost a lot of friends who were in a similar slacker boat as me a few years ago. It’s like they stopped wanting to hang out once I became successful which was very isolating.
Magnesium; I assume you mean magnesium amino chelate - I use that too. I was kind of pissed that I had to find out about it on the internet and my doctor looked at me funny when I mentioned it. A huge gamechanger for me was asking a friend who's also on the 'phetamines what time of day they stop taking it - now I'm religious about never ingesting stimulants after 3pm and holy crap what a difference.
I was a bartender for over a decade; there's no better crash course on how awful a molecule alcohol is. It's the worst drug.
Sorry to hear about your friends. It sucks to lose your roots, I went through something similar myself. I've come to reckon with the fact that people sometimes grow apart, and you can't always hold yourself responsible for what might just be an incompatibility in process.
Wow you and I do sound like we've had a lot of the same experiences, glad to here you're figuring out all this too. 3pm is exactly my rule too, never ever past then. Most days not past noon because my wife will ask me "have you been taking Adderall?" because my personality is so different. I go from being fun and easygoing to absolute Type-A, everything including people is either an obstacle or a tool toward a goal. I had people who saw me thriving with Adderall and started taking it – it sort of destroyed them. I'm much more cautious about recommending it. I'm having a productive day today and haven't taken any – sticking to a low carb diet for me at least seems to be the absolute most important thing for my mental health. I was so unstable and angry before.
Having a spouse around to correct my course when I start getting a little too enthusiastic about amphetamines and work was important for me too.
I use Magnesium Glycinate at the recommendation of people on the nootropics subreddit. [0] Has worked wonders.
Before I had the tech support job I was working on train radiators and it was awful. Came home covered in oil. The radiators weighed thousands of pounds and could easily crush a man.
Couple months later got my first SWE job after making a side project website and making a little YouTube video about the challenges of making a modern web application, like async programming all that stuff. Just kept applying to places until someone liked me, I guess.
Then I gained the weight back and got lazy, got fired from some other jobs. For me at least being fat makes me a bad programmer. Solving health problems for me was key to being able to learn and grow, as the constant headaches and inflammation made it nearly impossible to concentrate.
My job is pretty good, not super stressful. COVID messed me up mentally and I got bad marks for the past six months but I’ve finally gotten the hang of being isolated and not being so panicked. Anxiety and depression make working almost impossible for me without Adderall or some other such stimulant. Trying to wean off of those as I don’t like how they change my personality into a more nervous less interesting person.